7 day water fast **UPDATED**

General Forums Off-topic Chat
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I’m going to try NOT eating for 7 days. Only water and some salt for brain and heart function.

Does anyone have any experience fasting? Want to give me some tips or advice?
This may seem drastic for some but there appears to be health benefits to it, and not having to buy food is a plus too.

Update:

Day 1 - I had bad hunger pangs and at the end of the night I had some pretty intense stomach cramping.

Day 2 -I’m very tired. I tried to stay in the sun which seemed to give me energy. I’m taking about half a teaspoon of Himalayan salt a day as well. If I close my eyes I can imagine the salt being soup or popcorn. I feel no more hunger right now, but it comes and goes.

Day 3 - Waking up is really hard; felt like I was hung over, and at the same time got hit by a hurricane. Felt a little nauseous, but I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. Really tired and feel a bit lightheaded when standing from a long held sitting position. I haven’t been getting much sleep. It’s very uncomfortable because my mind keeps on wandering and picturing various food dishes, which makes my stomach hunger. So maybe 5 hours of sleep last night. Mouth is very parched and I’m feeling dehydrated. I believe my sense of smell has strengthened, and I enjoy smelling food items that are in the fridge. Black pepper, coconut oil, mayonnaise, smell very good(that’s about all I have in store).

Day 4 - Same as day 3 minus the nauseousness.

Day 5 - I felt totally normal getting out of bed, in fact better than usual even though I’m still not getting as much sleep. Was feeling great and was giggling to myself all day for no apparent reason. Maybe it’s my brain pumping opiates to dull the pain of hunger?

Day 6 - Felt amazing getting up today. I’m still weak, but I also feel like I have a stronger grip when I pick a heavy object up, but it’s probably all in my head. I can feel my skin tightening around my forehead and cheeks, especially when I was lying down last night to go to bed. Sunlight has been my best friend over the past few days. It really energizes me. I can see why some people believe that you don’t have to eat and just live off sun and air (breatharians I think they’re called), I could sit in the sun all day and not think about food. All my hunger is gone and I just feel fantastic. :slight_smile:

Day 7 - Only got 3 hours of sleep last night. Could not stop thinking about my first meal so it made me totally restless. Drank some Celery and carrot juice in the morning and that gave me some energy. Then about 2 hours later I drank a cup of my bone broth, and it was like I got a blood transfusion or something. My whole body got really warm especially my face and hands. So I’m feeling great right now. Still drinking/eating the broth.

I also tried some chocolate that was very dark( usually tastes bitter) but this time it tasted like sweet chocolate syrup. Everything tastes so wonderful:)

I will probably do this again in 6 months if I notice ant kinds improvements in my health that stay with me. Hopefully my immune system rebuilds itself :wink: I also like the idea of experimenting with a Ramadan style fast as well.

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At least eat a bread

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Some engage in water fasting as a detox diet. While there is no established body of scientific evidence showing that any detoxification occurs because of water fasting, there is evidence of harmful side effects from such diets.[1][2]

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For any diet, you go to a professional medical nutritionist (look for one that really is a doctor, because there are many quacks). You do not play with your health.
Yes, you have reserves in the body to survive a week without eating. But it is at the expense of your health, because in that week your body not only consume the body fat, also consumes proteins and others nutrients. There are also essential nutrients that the human body does not produce, and you have to consume them with the food. Also, your body will ask eat, and this can cause your stomach to secrete more acid than normal.
I really look stupid these reports. What is scientifically proven, it is that there are people who are susceptible to certain foods which can alter the immune system (in a bad way. For example, triggering autoimmunity). So if you have the feeling that a particular food makes you ill, go to a nutritionist to help him find out what food it is and you can reduce or eliminate “that particular food”, not all food.

I see you worried about money. You want to do this just to save money? Or do you feel sick?

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I think most work up to a week.

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@ Stark Designs - I haven’t eaten bread in months. If anything I would eat bacon or a nice greek salad. But a water fast is a water fast; that means only water.

@doublebishop - Thanks for the info but I’m not trying to detox, nor am I doing it to lose weight. I’m slender.
" there is evidence of harmful side effects from such diets" Yes of course you will eventually die if you don’t eat, but no where in those source you gave does it say how long the fast has to be to be dangerous.

Obviously I wouldn’t recommend anyone doing this without a doctor giving the okay or the person being in good health. And anyone who’s diabetic should never attempt this.

@ YAFU - Very good suggestions but I play with my health all the time. I tried a 2 gallons of milk per day diet and that didn’t go to well. We play with our health every time we get into a car to go out to eat. Do you really need to eat out??? No of course not, but you take the chance of getting obliterated by a semi truck to have a little fun and explore the world, and yourself.

Is this an experiment? Yes definitely, but it’s not a blind one, there is research on the benefits of fasting too, it’s just not “established”, whatever that means.
To answer your question, I am both poor and sick. Usually those two go together.

@Blonder - maybe 5 days because I’m skinny, but I will probably have to quit early anyway because of physical activity of work.

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Yeah, you can go to the jungle and start eating plants until discover which of them is poisonous. I’m sure it will be a fun experiment.

Come on! we are in 2016 with the highly advanced science. I know that “study” requires effort and it is increasingly despised by lazy people, and therefore tends to take as true what any quack says there.
Google: “milk”, “lactose” “lactase” “adult”

Oh! science knows for a long time why it is a bad idea that adults “abusing” of milk without fermentation processes. No need personal experiments to “discover” that.

study study study - science science science

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When you do things like this to your body, you might think that you are “simulating famine,” but the truth is that an animal who is an unsuccessful hunter might not get to eat for a week or more. Nevertheless, you are subjecting your body to something that it has never before known, and you can certainly expect an effect from this, although probably not the one that you wish: “weight gain.”

When you once again supply your body with food, it will tend to hoard that food, putting as much as possible into reserves in case “lean times” happen again.

If you actually want to lose weight, I would suggest: “Eat better, Take your time, and Wait a year.”

  • Most people eat a diet that does not supply a well-balanced mixture of nutrition … no matter how much food they eat. When a horse does not get adequate nutrition, he begins to eat the wood of his stall: a symptom called “cribbing.” The snack-(non-)food industry calls the same thing “the munchies.”
  • People tend to eat “all of the (too-much) food that is on their (restaurant) plate,” and to eat it as quickly as possible. Slow down! It takes a little while for your stomach to realize that it is now satisfied.
  • “Weight change does not happen quickly … it happens automatically.” Your body never assumes that food-supply is predictable, because, in the natural(!) world, it isn’t. It naturally tends to hoard food when food is available, as a hedge against times when it is not. Permanent change in the baseline body-weight is something that your body actually does very reluctantly.

I now weigh nearly 40 pounds less than (ugh …) I once did. But I didn’t do anything “special” to change that. I just ate better.

Another thing to remember is that: “Nature is not a naturally-sweet place.”[/i] Omnivores encounter “sugar” only when they rip-open a beehive or peel apart sugar-cane. Homo Sapiens has put the equivalent of (literally …) cups of sugar in very-nearly everything that it eats. Your body … especially your pancreas … frankly doesn’t have a chance.

But, your brain is the one that’s making those (foolish) decisions. You don’t have to drink another soft-drink. (I haven’t consumed one in thirty years.) (God help you if you touch(!) an “energy drink!”) You can read the ingredient-labels of the foods that you consume. And, “the Internet is now the world’s library.” The information is out there.

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I’m starting a diet with only fruits and vegetables and fruit juices.

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Hello @Geometricity

Your organism need much more than salt and water. You can really damage your health with this weird experiment.
You say that benefit is not to buy food, but i don’t think that you can earn money when you will lay down starving like a bag of potato, so you spend more on this time period, because anyway you need to pay a bills.

It’s seems that you don’t really care if you damage you health. Do you have a siblings? Just think how they will fill if you will get in to the hospital.

Is this an experiment? Yes definitely, but it’s not a blind one, there is research on the benefits of fasting too, it’s just not “established”, whatever that means.

I see you have a spirit of the scientist, but you methods cause big worry. I think you can try a diet of course, but you can try a many different interesting things such as real science experiments.
Science is sounds comprehensive. When we hear this word we imagine a Large Hadron Collider, or astronauts, or some other crazy stuff. But science is not so hard sometimes, and steel can be interesting. Scientists conduct experiments all the time! They often needs volunteers, and you can become a one of them. It good start point to big road of science.
There are scientists in every big city! You can find them in institute, museums, or someday science labs can organise some sort of open day, and if you fails to find them in such places you can always ask on scientific forums!
So good luck, and and take care of yourself! :cool:

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Bad idea if you plan to do it in a long time, almost nothing of amino acids (proteins).

For those who want to lose weight I have them bad news. The body will make every effort to store fat under any circumstances. And if the body needs energy, the body will prefer to use other energy sources first rather than burn fat. In short, it is very easy to accumulate fat. It is very difficult to lose weight by burning fat.

So you go to a professional for designing a diet to your needs (not all are equal bodies) and an exercise routine (very important). As a general rule, eat varied and eat balanced comprising all nutrients. Do not go hungry, eat every 4 or 5 hours. Avoid excessive high-glycemic foods. Reduce eating fat (not remove them from the diet). Exercise routine. And take this healthy eating and physical activity as a lifestyle. Do not expect to lose excess fat in just a few days.
And most importantly, you go to a professional doctor and not believe everything you read on the internet (even you do not trust what I am saying here)

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Another good thing to do is to carry around a notebook and write in it everything that you eat, and exactly when you eat it, during a one-week period. Then, go back and look at the log. It will surprise you.

“Learn how to cook!” It’s fun, and it lets you make fresh meals that can be “anything that comes to mind.” (You do have instincts about what your body needs.) Eat the meal slowly and don’t feel like you have to finish it all in one sitting.

When, over time(!), your body determines that it can get what it needs on a regular basis, it will start to draw-down fat reserves quite naturally. When a small amount of food contains the nutritional needs of the moment, your body won’t continue demanding that you find and eat more food.

And, like it or not, it will take a year. Get used to it, and enjoy the year.

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First a general caveat: Everyone’s body is different, and many times what is the best diet for one person may not be the best diet for another person, for a slew of medical reasons that quite frankly very few people here have the vocab to understand. My advice is to get some medical advice and get it from more then one source and keep one joke in mind.
What do you call a person who graduated last from medical school?

I do some intermittent fasting at least once a month, but that is more for resetting insulin tolerances then weight loss. Actually you won’t lose weight doing that. Some people make claims that it is possible but you will need to be doing other things as well for that to happen, such as eating a balanced diet, not-eating fastfood, and maybe some of that exercise thingie I’ve heard about. And not just doing it for one day or one week, but every day and every week.

And as a point of general nutrition keeping your systems flush with fluids is a good thing. Try to drink at least 2 quarts or 2 litres of water a day. You should be taking a pee pee a few times a day, that is a good thing for you it means there is that many less toxins in your body now.

And last but not least, your health is more then just a number on the scales and dials. How you get to your target weight is more important then getting to your target weight. I have a sister with an eating disorder and I can tell you stories of what a starvation diet does to your general health, most of them have a doctors bill somewhere in them.

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Agree… First listen to your body, know the machine you operate.
Health is a balance in the structural composite we call human being and you can only understand, comprehend it by achieving personaly great results while exercising, working out, contemplating, meditating, pro-creating… :wink:

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From my own experience and from studies I read I can predict that you will feel quite horrible around day 5 or 6 - that’s when your metabolism starts to change. Once you got through that phase, you will start to feel better again, both physically and mentally. To dampen this “rock bottom” phase you might want to add some fruit juice or broth to your diet.

IMHO you should not start this experiment without being thoroughly checked by a physician before and during the fasting. And try to do the fasting in your holiday, as you might feel too weak to work for some days. Also make sure to have a plan to slooooowly return to normal eating afterwards.

There are indeed quite extensive studies by russian physicians over the last 50 years that prove (or at least strongly suggest) substantial health benefits of fasting (up to two weeks) without side effects - it’s just that the western world hasn’t been interested in those results and pharmaceutical industry will do its best to keep it that way.

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I eat ->

Flat out Wraps + Humus + Guacamole

Coffee

Digestive Tea -( Ginger +herbs ) + Chia Tea

fruits and veggies.

I weigh 200 pounds, and am 6’3 and can run for miles without running out of breath or sweating - weather permitting
(I have gotten used to running with a 65 pound midget on my shoulders**)

I am in the best shape of my life, In high school I spent 4 years in freshmen Gym (*Failed do to skipping school and not having gym clothes) - I smoked cigarettes from 12 -> 25 ish, even then I could stay in the front of the pack with the track kids, or out in fron in swimming against people in organized sports. (I think it was all heart because I ate a crap diet)

Now I am 32 and in the best shape of my life, some of it is food, some of it was quitting smoking, and some of it is my routine

(I sometimes have to move people and objects well over 200 pounds)

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I don’t have a lab to study. You assumed that I drank unpasteurized milk? I drank only pasteurized fda approved stuff. I drank 2 gallons a day for about six months, and I did this to gain weight. I had tried everything else and milk was the only thing that had some effect. In the end all it did was give me some acne and enlarge my lyph nodes on my neck, which had occurred when I was drinking milk at a younger age, I just didn’t put two and two together. Obviously this is anecdotal… so yeah. But I find it funny that you would read that someone was drinking 2 gallons of milk a day and go right to saying that it was the lack of pasteurization that was dangerous, lol.

You also fail to acknowledge that you also take chances with your own health. Did you ever go somewhere in a car to find something out or to experience something new or unknown? You likely didn’t have to go there, yet you took the chances of being ripped apart in a car accident. Did you ever take a friend with you? Well then risked his or her life as well. Could you have studied your routes better to see which was the safest way to get to your destination? I doubt it, you didn’t want to “study study study”, you just went on impulse and put yourself at risk.

What I’m doing isn’t nearly as impulsive as my examples. I did a fair amount of studying, did you?

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Have you even searched on google with keywords that I had mentioned to you?. The problem is “lactose”, and low “lactase” the body of an adult produces. Fermented milk products (yogurt, hard cheeses, etc) have less lactose (part of the lactose is transformed). Excess of milk (lactose) will not kill you, but produce malais, gases and intestinal inflammation. And anything that stress the body is not very good for consume excessively. There is also lactose-free milk, but it has a high price.
With gain weight you mean gain muscle mass with weight training exercise program? Of course, milk and eggs are one of the foods with proteins of higher biological value (BV) for humans.

Of course you do not have a laboratory. What I say is that you do not need to put your health at risk experimenting with anything that any quack say there. You read and study first, science is well advanced and is all documented. And if you are young, you can study and become a scientist and have your laboratory. Experimentation with the scientific method, measuring and analyzing things is much more powerful than bad personal experiments which draw the conclusion “I think maybe I feel…” sensations that are usually erroneous due to a placebo effect.

I will not comment on your second paragraph, I find it meaningless.

All I know is that more and more lazy uneducated people talking nonsense on the internet, and many others of the same level following the nonsense they read. And when this concerns the feeding I find it dangerous, considering the serious eating disorders experienced by many young people today.

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Well the only reason I wrote the second paragraph was because you gave me the analogy of eating plants to see which is poisonous. That’s a weird way to put what I’m doing. I’m eating plants to find out which ones are beneficial. You can scoff at that all you want but what I’m pointing out is that you do the same thing if you ever risk your life on a highway to get to some place good(but unnecessary), i.e., beneficial plants. And I think I understand why you might want to think this is meaningless; it’s because you do take these risks without properly studying your routes, i.e., you fall into the lazy and uneducated category yourself. Some highways are more dangerous than others, while some plant are more dangerous than others, but I doubt you study each highway you travel on to see the traffic fatality statistics, or bother going on side streets that may be more prone to accidents but have less of a chance of lethal accidents occurring.

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Well caloric restriction can have positive effects against aging.

Eating Disorders usually stem from some form of mental disorder or stress.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/eating-disorders/index.shtml

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/eating-disorders-new-trifold/index.shtml

There really is no reason to think that fasting is inherently dangerous. It depends on a lot of factors. The same can be said about a vegan diet. In either case, it requires effort to have a favorable result and may not be a good alternative for some.

There was a recent study that showed not only evolutionary drivers for lactose tolerance (and lack there of); but also developmental aspects as well.

Diet is a pretty complex subject. It’s never enough to say that a certain diet is favorable or unfavorable. It’s never a bad idea to consult your personal GP though. That is a source of very explicit information of how it could effect you personally.